Culture Boundaries

Abstract

The border constitutes a fundamental crossing place that is fundamental
for the life of cultures. It delimits a culture from
belonging to more than one. Here we consider culture, on the
one hand, as a group of articulated and hierarchized elements,
and, on the other, as a group of relationships between those
elements. The members of a culture see it as a sphere of the
organized, while the area around it (which is not a chaotic space
but that of other cultures) is seen as lacking order and
organization. The most well-known characteristic of cultures,
besides their capacity to organize and reproduce themselves, is
their dynamic character, asymmetry and the absence of
equilibrium. The border works as one of the motors of that
dynamism.